computer Surge Suppressor-protector question

hi all,

If I turn my computer off at night [hibernation] should the Surge Protector remain on, or can I turn it off also? Can a surge/spike hurt anything with the computer off?

And, I have other devices [spreakers, cable modem, printer] plugged into it also, so I thought I might as well turn them all off. That way, at the end of the year, I can afford a new set of tires [for my bicycle]

thanks marc

Reply to
marco polo
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Hibernation is not turning it off and you need power to the PC. It is the lowest power setting though. If you want to turn off the surge suppressor your will need to "shut-down".

Reply to
Bob Villa

Your computer will be protected from surges the same with the supressor off or on. Maybe slightly beter with it off.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

The most important thing is to be sure all the inputs to your system and the house are protected. You need phone line and TV cable protection too and be sure it is using the same ground point as the electrical service protection (panel protector). Those surge strips may make you feel good but if you are not stopping most of the problems before they get in your house you are not really doing much.

Reply to
gfretwell

Yes. There are other conduits to the computer besides AC.

Reply to
dadiOH

MS doesn't recommend turning off the power to the PC.

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Reply to
Bob Villa

How do you turn the surge protector off without turning off all equipment that is downstream from the protector?. I would leave it on and shut everything downstream off.

Reply to
hrhofmann

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I've had my desktop connected to the switched on/off side of my surge protector for years, and have using hibernation routinely as well. I always turn off the surge protector power switch after hibernating the desktop, sometimes for more than a day. I'd estimate that no more than a few times a year the system does not "wake up" properly and requires a restart.

Reply to
Peter

In news: snipped-for-privacy@j13g2000pro.googlegroups.com, Bob Villa typed: : On Mar 11, 12:17 pm, marco polo wrote: :: . :: Hibernation, according to MS: :: saves your session, and shuts off the computer; as opposed :: to Not saving your session, and shutting off computer, I :: suppose. :: :: I haven't "shut down" 1st. :: I have been putting my computer into Hibernation, :: and turning off the Surge protector [for weeks now]. :: :: One way or the other, the computer is shut off, :: and when both are turned on, I have my restored programs. :: So, Hibernation does not need power [at least with Windows :: 7]. :: :: I just want to know if the computer is ok [protected] :: with the Suppressor off. :: :: thanks :: mark : : MS doesn't recommend turning off the power to the PC. : :

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Where does that link say that? Inwhich link it offers? All I see is: " Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk, and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won't use your laptop for an extended period and won't have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time.

"

They don't say so, but that's the same state as if you did a Shut Down. Things like "Wake from LAN", "wake from USB device", etc, are still possible. As long as the PC has power, those things are possible. To eliminate those possibilities, you must actually remove power from the PC plug, and can be done while a machine is IN hibernation. Everything it needs to come out of hibernation is stored in the registry and on-disk. Nothing resides in memory that's needed with Hibernation. You can kill the power from the surge protector and nothing untoward wll happen; I do it all the time when I have several windows open and things in process. When I come back, it goes to the hard drive and resets everything back exactly as it was when it Hibernated (and power was removed from the PC if that occurred). Just be certain Hibernation is complete before you kill power. And assuming you have sufficient space allocated to Hibernate too.

HTH,

Twayne`

Reply to
Twayne

Only reporting the source...you do as you like, of course.

Reply to
Bob Villa

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Hmm, Is the BIOS on your desktop up-to-date?

Reply to
Tony Hwang

I'd add battery back up. I have it on all my computers. You can buy cheap units that will keep power for several minutes in case of a power outage to allow proper shut down.

Also with surge strips, a surge may knock them out and they will not provide protection for the next surge.

Reply to
Frank

In news:4d7a6cf9$0$17935$ snipped-for-privacy@postbox2.readnews.com, dadiOH typed: :: marco polo wrote: ::: hi all, ::: ::: If I turn my computer off at night [hibernation] ::: should the Surge Protector remain on,

It doesn't really matter but it can be a handy place to remove power completely from the PC if that's what you want to do.

::: or can I turn it off also?

Up to you.

::: Can a surge/spike hurt anything with the computer off? :: :: Yes. There are other conduits to the computer besides AC.

Well, that's kind of a useless post; what ARE they?

They are things like ground interruptions surging or browning, taken away by a good surge suppressor. With the surge protector, you are adding a bit of protection to that of the computer but in a way it lessens the effects of overall protection by putting surge suppression ckty in parallel, which means, since it's not resistive, that the timing stretches out before they fire because each one takes on the surge unless/until it gets high enough to let some surges get through. The thing to remember is never to put surge suppression in series because it puts the active components in parallel. That's probably not intuitive but if you draw out two surge suppressor schematics in series, you'll note that the protection devices end up in parallel and overall suppression abilities are thus compromised.

Most importantly: There are things like the telephone or modem lines where surges etc. can get into a PC easily. Those are particularly susceptible to power surges and lightning hits more often than the AC line is, in fact, if the outside wiring is above ground anywhere between you and the telco; which is the usual case. There are a few others but they become mundane compared to the above. Always disconnect the phone/DSL/ADSL etc. connectors whenever you are trying to protect the computer. Only optical cable has any kind of native protection against surge & lightning hits. You are much more likely to experience surge/lightning than you are someone hacking into your machine unless you carelessly designed forms or other user inputs for your web site.

Reply to
Twayne

Hibernation DOES turn off the computer. By turn off, I mean removes power in exactly the same way as "powering down" the computer. The power consumption difference between hibernation and shut-down is zero; they are identical in this regard.

Now "powering down," whether by front-panel switch or by Hibernation, does not remove all power from the computer. The computer's power supply does maintain a trickle voltage to maintain the internal clock (in case the battery fails) or, in some cases, wake-on-lan.

You can completely "power-down" the computer by flipping the switch on the computer's power supply - if it has one - on the back of the case.

Reply to
HeyBub

That's my question too.

Maybe so, but it works great for desktops. If you have multiple programs open and running, you don't have to go start them again. It even restarts cmd .bat files that were running. It picks up just where you left off.

Many people will have to actually close windows every 3 or 4 days, some earlier, some later, but I've been going about 4 days lately.

Once in a while, you have to actually close windows and restart it because the MS Tuesday downloads usually need you to close windows to finish installing them, and other software may require that too. Also, If you start to run out of RAM, you'll have to close. Some programs still don't fully release the ram they use and after a few days, you can run out. Or if the computer slows down for no identifeied reason, restarting will often get it back to the regular speed.

I've always been able to restart from Hibernate in winxp, but have on occasion in win98 had problems restarting from Standby. Since I alwway save my work, I can turn the computer off while in Standby and I've lost no work, but I have to restart all the programs. (And the

10 year old, 4 versions old version of Agent I use only remembers that one ng was open. If I used version 6, it would remember all of them even with a cold start)

I did have to buy a newer video card for 20 or 30 dollars to get Standby and Hibernate to work, but the one I had was about 10 years old.

Sleep, or Standby, has the disadvantage that if the computer gets unplugged, or if a laptop battery runs down, everything that was in memory is forgotten. This would inslude a modiefied file that hasn't been saved. Or a bat file that was running.

It uses none, afaik, except the battery that powers the clock and retains values in the BIOS, adnd you're right, the power needed to let wake-from work, but that's used even when the computer is off, unless maybe one disables wake from.

I had hibernate as far back as win 3.1, I think it was, but it had a different name and came from a 3rd party. I bought it at a hamfest but didn't, couldn't really use it because it took so long to copy my ram to the harddrive and back. Later MS bought it from the author (or maybe stole it and paid him something when he sued, who knows?)

Reply to
mm

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Can you point me a little closer to where it says that?

Reply to
Tony Miklos

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I normally use "standby" much faster wake up. And it took me a while to get it to work, but finally made it so moving the mouse will not wake it up. I hated that, walk by a little too fast and the mouse moves a hair and starts the pc. Now I have to press the keyboard for it to wake up.

Reply to
Tony Miklos

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I wouldn't call 2003 up to date! It's a Phoenix BIOS on a Dell Dimension 4600i running XP Home. All I've ever updated is the OS (per MS updates), software applications, and added some RAM.

Reply to
Peter

"Tony Miklos" wrote

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I don't see that, but they do use some power. Hybrid sleep though, allows the power to be cut.

Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won't use your laptop for an extended period and won't have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time.

Hybrid sleep is designed primarily for desktop computers. Hybrid sleep is a combination of sleep and hibernate-it puts any open documents and programs in memory and on your hard disk, and then puts your computer into a low-power state so that you can quickly resume your work. That way, if a power failure occurs, Windows can restore your work from your hard disk. When hybrid sleep is turned on, putting your computer into sleep automatically puts your computer into hybrid sleep. Hybrid sleep is typically turned on by default on desktop computers.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

It's at least as well protected with the switched turned off as with the switch turned on because the surge protection components are still connected to the AC lines.

But if a storm is pending or you'll be leaving your home, unplug everything connected to the computer, even the monitor, printer, modem, and TV cable.

Reply to
larry moe 'n curly

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